teething is torture

It's been a rough few days in our house. Teething has begun, and she's been one fussy girl. Today was better than yesterday, but sleeping through the night is definitely a thing of the past now that she's teething. She's up two and three times a night. I'm tired!

Baby Orajel works wonders, I've discovered. I need to thank the person that invented it. Unfortunately it doesn't last too long because she licks it all off.

That's all I have time for. She just woke up and is crabby. What happened to my happy little girl??

sitting up!

On Thursday she could sit for about a minute. But when she got to Grandma's house on Friday, she sat up all by herself for 15 or 20 minutes at a time! Now it's all she wants to do. She's pretty good at it, and doesn't fall over too often. It makes it a lot easier for her to play with toys by herself because she can hold them in her lap or have them right in front of her on the floor. She doesn't have to have Mommy always dangling them over her while she's on her back like before.

And she's pushing up much higher than before, too. I'd better watch out...she'll be figuring out how to get those knees under her pretty soon and start to MOVE! Then watch out....here comes trouble. Here she is pushing WAY up while playing with one of her favorite playmates, Grandma! If you look closely you'll see a bow in her hair--I FINALLY found some bows that stay in her hair, after a 5 1/2 month quest to find one!! I'll post one another time where you can see it better.

And this is just a recent picture that I thought was cute. She's playing in her exersaucer...another one of her favorite things to do to pass the time.

green beans

For all of you who were waiting on pins and needles to find out, the green beans seemed to be a hit last night. She made a strange face with the first couple of bites, but then she kept opening her mouth for more.

Today's adventure was a trip to JoAnn's to buy supplies to make a grocery cart cover. (So when the baby sits in a grocery cart, she's not getting another baby's yucky germs). I had the fabric already, I just needed some other odds and ends. I'm making this up myself, following a loose description of how to do it that I found on the internet. So this afternoon I made a pattern out of tissue paper and cut out the fabric. Now I'm in a dilemma about how to sew it together, because I'm trying to put batting on the inside to make it softer, but am running into problems. I think it's time for a call to Mom, the sewing expert who taught me everything I know.

Anyway, that's what's up here. My dear daughter is currently waking up from a nap--I hear her starting to stir through the monitor down here. Usually she talks to herself for awhile, stares at the blinds and so forth, and then I go get her. That's where I'll be heading in a few minutes, unless, by some stroke of luck, she decides to go back to sleep (which does happen on occasion, but sadly, not often enough).

a swallow study

Today I had to take out little girl to have a swallow study done. She's had eating issues since the very beginning, and at first it was diagnosed as reflux, but then it started looking like more of a swallowing problem, so the pediatrician wanted her to have this test done. They feed the baby barium in a bottle and then watch her swallow it on a screen that looks like an x-ray, but the picture is moving instead of still like an x-ray. They had me feed her, but she started crying right away and wouldn't eat. They then had me give her her regular bottle, which she ate fine, and then switch it really quickly with the barium bottle, but she was too smart for that. She figured that out and started crying again. At one point they let me take her out of the chair where she was strapped in, to calm her down, but then I had to put her back and try again. It wasn't very successful.

But I guess they were able to see enough of the barium go down to see that she swallows okay. Then I got her out of the chair and took her to another room and they let me feed her the regular bottle the normal way, and they watched. The occupational therapist showed me a different way to hold her head that might help some. We'll see with time, I guess.

So the whole thing was pretty inconclusive, but they didn't see any major problems, so that's good. Actually, she's been doing better in the last month, so I wasn't expecting them to find anything (it just took me this long to get in for an appointment!!!).

That was the excitment in our world today. Oh, and tonight she's trying green beans for the first time. It's the first non-sweet thing she'll be eating, so we'll see how it goes. Hopefully there won't be green goo everywhere!

ready for bed

I just had to share this picture from a few nights ago. I've started putting her in sleepers again, instead of just onesies, to sleep, since it's getting cooler at night. So I pulled this one out that had been her cousin's. Then I remembered it had a hat with it, so I just had to see how it looked. I had to take a picture because it was just too funny. She didn't sleep with it on, which is probably a good thing because I would've laughed anytime I looked in on her, and would've woken her up!

Not too much going on here--her two bottom teeth are close to coming in. You can see them and kind of feel them. She's been fussing more, so I'm wondering if that's why. She's now added pears to her eating repertoire, though I'm not sure she likes them. She likes them mixed with her oatmeal, but doesn't seem to like them much by themselves. Next I think I'll try green beans. I haven't decided yet.

Two hour naps are a thing of the past....that was just a fluke, I guess. We're back to the forty five minute nap again. It's hard to get much done during the day when she's only asleep for 45 minutes a couple of times a day. Oh well. I'm trying to remember that these days go by so fast and I just want to soak it all in and not worry about getting things done. She's too precious at this stage to be worrying about those things.

two hour naps

The last two days she has taken a two hour nap in the morning. In fact, right now she's still asleep and has been for almost two and a half hours! This is GREAT, except that I'm always expecting her to wake up, so I don't do anything I'd like to get done, because I'm afraid I'll be in the middle of it when she wakes up and needs me. Maybe if this becomes more consistent I can stop this constant expecting.

She slept through the night for a week straight, but last night the streak ended. She woke up at 3:45. Oh well--I was sure it was too good to be true, anyway. I hope it's still coming close to being regular, though.

She hasn't learned any new tricks lately, though she's perfecting her jumping skills, her vocal abilities, and her turning from back to tummy. She's a happy girl.

five months old

Here's our smiley girl. She's been a good girl: sleeping through the night, eating well, happy when she's awake....we couldn't ask for much more. This is her five month old picture in the chair that we've taken it in every month. Her head got cut off a bit because in order to get her to smile I have to take my head away from the viewfinder and make my mouth really big and say, "AAAAHHHHH" and then she smiles! The things we do to make children laugh....

Today she ate a new food...bananas! I had planned on doing carrots, but a friend told me if you do all orange things at once, they turn orange! So since she's been doing sweet potatoes, and carrots is another orange food, I decided on bananas instead. She loved them.

She's busy playing peekaboo with Daddy at the moment. What a good dad he is.

she can jump!

For almost 2 months now we've been putting her in her jumpster in the doorway...and for two months she's sat there doing nothing but staring. She's always enjoyed it, probably because it's a new perspective, but she's never been interested in jumping. Somehow, today, that all changed. I put her in there while I was working in the kitchen and all of a sudden I heard a bouncing noise. I looked over and she was jumping! It started out only a few jumps at a time, but later I put her in again, and as the day went on, she jumped progressively longer and longer. She loved it!! She sat in there for about 30 minutes--longer than she'll do ANYTHING at one time, besides sleep (and that's usually only for 45!) Here's proof...though it was hard to catch her in mid-air. You'll just have to trust me, I guess.

This is my polite, well-mannered little girl, daintily eating her breakfast of oatmeal a few days ago....

sweet potatoes for our sweet pea

She's joined the ranks of the spoon-eating population again. After starting rice cereal several weeks ago, we stopped soon after because she wasn't eating it. She'd turn away, arch her back, and just generally showed her displeasure at eating rice cereal. I thought she just wasn't ready for solids. Maybe I was wrong. Yesterday I made my first of many batches of homemade baby food--sweet potatoes. I'd never bought sweet potatoes in my life. The only time I've ever had them is at thanksgiving, and then it's only one small one on my plate to TRY to like them. But I bought them, peeled and cooked them, pureed them, and froze them in ice cube trays. I had two servings leftover that wouldn't fit in the ice cube tray, so I decided to try to give her one of them, even though she wasn't eating cereal well, and all the books say to do that first before fruits or vegetables. Well, my mom reminded me that I have a mind of my own and I don't need to do just what the books say, so I made an executive mothering decision, and tried the sweet potatoes. She loved them!! She opened her mouth when she saw the spoon coming, didn't spit them out, didn't make any faces, and ate the whole entire portion!

I decided to buy baby oatmeal and try that as cereal instead of the rice. So today, since the sweet potatoes went so well, I decided to try oatmeal. More success! She loved it--she talked all through her meal--something she only does when she's happy. She opened up for every bite and ate two tablespoons full--she never even took ONE tablespoon of rice cereal. Maybe she just isn't a rice cereal lover. (Her daddy doesn't like rice chex cereal--maybe she got that gene!!)

She's sleeping better, eating better..... things are on the up and up. Now if I could just figure out what schedule she's following............because it certainly isn't mine! She's doing a good job, but just isn't very consistent.